Seat of Our Noble Line (Part 11)
As the group discusses the matters that had passed on in the library, Cosette tends to the matters of the room. Seeing that the tea is already being made, the maid is... without much to do.
"Should you require any reagents or other amenities for spellcasting," Cosette says, "I would suggest you enter the last room in which you have not been yet. That would be... Master Padaryn's study. Although I am reluctant to suggest such a thing. I am uncertain how that room in particular will react to your presences."
After a moment, however, the headless maid does produce sandwiches, for those who would care to have them. She sets these out on a tray wordlessly and with a polite curtsy before the group.
Despite the fact that Cosette is, in fact, a headless ghost trapped in the house, that doesn't stop Telamon from being charming. "Thank you, Cosette," he says warmly. "It's been a busy day. But if you have anything you'd like to add regarding our... attempts to set things right, I for one am willing to listen." The half-elf perches on one of the chairs, as he brushes back his hair.
His eyes move to his companions -- friends and family. "I'm still contemplating what we saw. And trying to decide how to proceed."
Zeke falls silent, simply completing his own tea and ignoring the offering of sandwiches. He does not know from whence the come - magic - but he is not interested in taking that risk. The blue-scaled sith simply quietly sips his tea until it is gone. Even Telamon's statement doesn't draw him out of his silence.
Verna looks between then others as they recuperate, refresh, and now discuss. "Any insight any might offer is welcomed," she informs (reminds?) all. "To include yourself, Cosette, thank you," she adds when the maid provides a suggestion in addition to the refreshments. "It may not be possible to fully understand the fine details of the situation until we are fully within it." Which presents its own additional risks, certainly.
The teapot warmed, Seldan accepts with a word of thanks a cup of tea and a sandwich, when they are made available, quietly considering the heavy silence of his companions, and the weight of what they just saw. He leans now against the edge of the bed, still in full armor. The gauntlets are off, having been tossed to the bed in the process of warming the teapot, but the rest of him is still quite armored.
"It is in my mind that She was quite correct," he murmurs, pale blue eyes on the amber surface of the tea, booted feet supporting his leaning position against the edge of the bed. "Master Rhain, and all of the memories and shades present save only Cosette here, are trapped within this place. It shall need the star-knife - Her weapon - to dispel this correctly. But - what of you, Cosette? Will you be contented, do we free him?"
GAME: Zeke rolls Wisdom: (5)+8: 13 GAME: Seldan rolls wisdom: (10)+5: 15 GAME: Telamon rolls Wisdom: (12)+4: 16 GAME: Verna rolls wisdom: (14)+7: 21
Cosette takes a few steps away from where the group dines and has their tea. She stands in a proper position for a perfectly poised maid. Straight back. Straight pointed feet. The only thing missing... is the head.
Which is why it's remarkable when a heavy sigh leaves her and she looks like she's deflating.
"I'd once hoped for my feelings to be returned," she says. "Now, I simply hope to be put at rest. Free him. Then I am freed... and that I have rest at last."
Telamon stares at the ceiling, expression lost in thought. But at Cosette's sad voice, the sorcerer stands up slowly. "There is more than you might believe, beyond the Halls, Cosette. I -know- this." His voice is steady and confident. "Have faith."
He looks at the others, before going over to grab a cup of tea. "Seldan, something's going through your head." Tel grins at the paladin. "You've got something in mind."
Zeke pours himself another cup of tea and sets the pot down on the small table beside him. He sips the tea slowly, the heat of it as comforting as the flavor. He blinks as Telamon stands up and watches the shaman move through the room.
Seldan is listening to the exchange between Telamon and Cosette, and to Cosette's words - well, possibly half listening, from the way he stares at the surface of the tea. "I see," he murmurs quietly. "That do I mean to do - but -" Here, he trails off, half in answer to Telamon, and half to himself. "The star-knife completes the diagram - it is the final piece!" Sandwich still in hand, he straightens up, sets aside his teacup and the sandwich on top of it.
"Not quite," a deep, resonant voice comes from the sheathed Reunion lying on the bed. "There is a reason why She wanted us, specifically, to do this, it seems clear. Perhaps it is that we, as fragments of souls of this line, are to reunite the fragments of this soul?"
Seldan stops short, staring at the blade. "You - of _course_. Would he then join you?"
"That is for him to decide, if he still can," the deep voice returns calmly. "The first step is to complete the diagram, for his soul is torn apart within it. To complete the diagram is to make it possible to reunite the shards. Leave that to us."
Verna shifts her attention to Cosette once more and echoes her brother-in-bond, in a fashion. "You shall receive the peace and rest which you are due, Cosette. That much I can assure you." Is she perhaps stepping ahead of her Mistress' Judgement? To a degree, yet she has seen nothing from this soul that would suggest she deserves anything less than a pleasant eternity.
She turns to Seldan when he speaks up; first in thought, then to the blade. Brows lift. In the context of her knowledge (which is far less than Seldan's on this matter), all that is said rings quite true. "Then it should be completed," she opines. "Should we examine his study, beforehand? As well, it is possible that some of the split shards of his psyche may resist Reunion. My experience with fragments of memory is limited, yet... " she reconsiders and closes simply with "Caution may be wise."
"Your words are kind," Cosette says simply to Telamon and Verna. Her voice is a sad and delicate kind.
And then... Her body turns in a way that suggests she is looking at Zeke. "Sunguard, if I might..."
The maid pauses for a moment. "I have not seen true sunlight in a very long time. I would like it, if--before you venture off into whatever way you and your party goes--you could..."
Her hands press together tightly in front of her. "Please disregard," she says. "It is not the place of a maid to ask such a thing of a guest."
Telamon finishes his tea, setting the cup down. "Cosette, you have endured so much more than anyone should be asked to. If this would ease your thoughts, even for a time... I can do this."
Tel's eyes glow with the light of distant stars. "This is my task: to be the guardian of travelers at night, and to carry Her light into dark places. Fear nothing, Cosette. She is always with us."
And then Telamon bows his head, takes a deep breath, and focuses. The intricate star chart tattooed onto his back glows, the lines visible right through his garments, a white-gold geometric pattern that seems to hover there. And then the light begins to spread outward from him, a glorious hue of summer days that seems to push back the oppressive nature of the house, just a little bit.
Zeke blinks in surprise at the maid's request but... He has no sunlight which to offer her. If he had known... He would have requested such a blessing from the Dragonfather, but he had not. Telamon instead, grants this blessing in his place, burning up with a light inside of his own flesh that flickers and glows like a captured star. Zeke silently finishes his tea and sets it aside. The tea service gets silently packed away into his belongings; his thoughts are his own.
Surprised, Seldan stops where he is, tea and half-eaten sandwich for the moment forgotten, pale brows headed for his hairline at the glowing marks on his back. He keeps his peace, though, merely watching, first Telamon, then Cosette. "We are here to be of aid to all present within this place, Cosette," he murmurs. "It is our intent and our purpose, to set this place right and bring peace to those trapped within. You are not out of place to ask."
Seeing that Zeke is packing up the tea services, he hurries to pick up and finish his own tea and sandwich.
"Mourner, your thought is well-taken," he offers between bites. "Do we not see all of the rooms, we may leave a danger unguessed at, and to attempt the completion having done so is risky indeed. Nay, I would have us explore all, as you say."
Verna did not expect such a request from Cosette, though is less surprised that Telamon able, and not at all that he is quick to grant such. She may personally serve neither Sun nor Moon, yet she finds some brief respite in the light, herself. She then observes Zeke for a time as he packs before she rises. "An intent that we should see to momentarily." A nod to Seldan. "As you noted, it is best not to leave an unknown in our wake. Shall we?" There is no need to delay Cosette's (and Rhayn's) peace, and their own departure from this somewhat uncomfortable place. Only one more knob to turn.
Cosette stands very still as Telamon sheds his light. It's like the headless maid ghost has now turned into a distinctly solid and fixed statue. Everything but the head that might be displayed on its own in a museum somewhere.
"I wish," Cosette says softly, "that I could share with you the tears of my soul. That you would understand how much this gesture means to me."
The room lightens for that sentiment. Something that feels rejuvenating. Like the load on Cosette's shoulders have lifted for seeing light again, so do the party's burdens.
"I shall not keep you here," she says. "Go. Do what is needed."
A benediction, of sorts. But it still means something. As the quartet steps back out into the hall once again, Telamon incants, "Akar irhandi," wrapping himself in sorcerous armor. Letting Zeke and Seldan take the lead, as he follows along next to Verna, still shedding that warm, happy sunshine from him that helps brighten the everpresent gloom in the house. "Wonder what we'll find behind this door," he remarks, talking to try and banish a touch of nerves. "I'm hoping for something a little less ... dramatic. Or at least, less dangerous."
GAME: Telamon casts Mage Armor. Caster Level: 20 DC: 20 GAME: Seldan casts Mage Hand. Caster Level: 16 DC: 20
The sandwich is polished off, the tea is consumed and the teacup handed off, and Seldan reaches for the gauntlets and blade he'd tossed casually to the bed. Crumbs disappear in a heartbeat, and Reunion is fastened to the paladin's hip. "If we have been able to offer you ease, then that is a gift indeed. Still, we should go."
With that, he turns and exits the room, headed for the final door. He pauses in a reach for the handle, then changes his mind and stops a few feet from it, and traces a sigil in the air, then gestures at the doorknob from some feet away, as if opening it.
Verna dips her head to Cosette in gratitude, farewell, or some combination thereof. She then moves to follow the others into the hall, stopping short of the door that is their first target and which Seldan prudently attempts to open from more than arm's length distance.
Zeke trails along behind Seldan, as he always has. Following in the paladin's wake like a big, blue shadow. He pauses when the other man pauses, allowing him to use his magic to try the door.
The door... opens. Not locked, not trapped, nothing. And, presumably because Seldan had opened it with magical aid, there is not feeling of cold or dread to be had.
It reveals a room that is, politely, a mess. A madman's nest. There's pages and pages and pages torn out from journals everywhere. The floor feels sticky at times--and when one looks down, it's because the floor has, in bits and places, blood that is somehow neither fresh nor dry. Bookshelves contain a number of scrolls, reagents, and other magical accouterments.
The writing desk, however, and the chair that's in front of it--are nearly entirely covered in blood.
Well, Telamon isn't exactly surprised. Appalled, yes, but not surprised, as he stares in past Seldan and Zeke. "Ni'essa preserve us." he says finally, swallowing. So much blood -- his face pales a bit, before his expression firms up again. "Do... we want to go in there? I ...maybe the bookcases have further clues, but... it's a mess in there."
GAME: Seldan casts Light. Caster Level: 16 DC: 20
Verna blinks and gasps at the sight that greets them. "That is utterly abhorrent! How could one accomplish anything in such a place... " She considers Seldan's words. "It may well be prudent, per Cosette's suggestion... yet it might require some time to locate anything of note; useful or otherwise. There appears little semblance of organization whatsoever."
The blood is not so offensive nor unsettling to her. Rather, it is the complete and utter unmanaged chaos.
Seldan sucks in a breath as he surveys the wreckage of the place, and takes a step or two inside, slowly, walking heel to toe. One booted foot sticks to the floor where he places it in silence, and he tugs at it, then looks down, frowning. "This is where the deed was done," he breathes almost soundlessly, sorrow tinging the even and steady words. "Cosette's words fill me with foreboding. I would learn why it is, of all the places, that this would respond ill to our presence. We should be cautious."
Without thinking, he conjures light, placing the blue-gold-silver mote of light on the end of the bow across his back, such that the illumination rides above one shoulder. By it, he steps closer to the nearest torn-out journal page, and moves to read it.
GAME: Zeke rolls Heal: (18)+25: 43
Zeke follows in Seldan's wake, unbothered by the blood really. He's been a healer longer than most people have been alive, but his green eyes do skim over the blood patterns, the disarray. Cataloging it in his mind. "Thissss almossst certainly wasss fatal." He says, his voice a deep rumble. These are the first words that he's said in hours. "Cosssette may have died here asss well."
The light that Seldan conjures is a thing that feels in such stark contrast to the _feeling_ of this room, with small pools and splatter of coagulated blood on the floor in addition to the journal pages.
The page that Seldan reads has a frantic scrawl on it:
"I am running out of time. I feel uneasy. The worst thing of being a man is that I cannot, not ever, have enough time. The Eye tells me I am running out of time. I cannot let that happen. I cannot. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. The final ritual must happen and then I must have dear Cosette help me install it. To trade my eye for an eye--
The world must go blind."
Telamon follows, of course. He can do nothing less. That doesn't stop him from walking with care, trying not to tread on the spatters of blood or any pages on the floor. Cautiously, he begins inspecting the shelves, as he shivers. Even with the light he radiates, this is a place where something very, very bad happened.
At Zeke's words, Telamon nods sadly. "Possibly. That's... a lot of blood."
GAME: Telamon rolls perception: (11)+33: 44
"That might explain her trepidations of this room," Verna offers as she moves, attempting to avoid pools on the floor and smaller spatters where she is able. With Telamon moving to the bookshelf, she seeks out a discarded page near herself. Given their scattering, there is naught but chance to predetermine what might prove informative and what is not.
The words written on the page confirm Seldan's supposition, and he lowers the page, eyes lowering, and sets it aside. "The world must go blind," he murmurs. "He permitted the artifact to persuade him to act."
He sets that page aside, intentionally, and picks up another.
Zeke glances toward Telamon, looking at the other man for a moment and then swings his head back toward Seldan. "Thissss one will wait outssside." He murmurs, the words so low that they're almost inaudible. He turns and heads out the way that they'd come in, standing in the hallway.
Verna gets a look at a page. This one reads:
"It is the only way. There is only one way. The Eye is right. If I am to reach beyond to see her again... It must be done. The rituals. The anchoring. It must be done. The world must go blind and be plunged into the dark. Into the void."
The rest of the page is bloodsplatter.
The other page that Seldan looks at, however, has... a bit more? It looks like it might be one written from earlier on in Rhain's investigations:
"I shouldn't. I should not. No self-respecting mage would ever, could ever. To tangle with the Void is to court... self-destruction. It would be an affront to everything ever said of magic. I shouldn't. But... if it is possible to chase the days of glory our family once held, if it is possible to see her again, if I can somehow become _master of the Void itself_...
Animus help me. Eluna help me. Is this what it is like to dream so far that you fall from the sky and into Caracoroth's waiting jaws of nightmare?"
Telamon glances over at Seldan. "This thing, the Eye... it's -sapient-? Gods..." He pauses, glances at Reunion, then says, "Don't take this personally, Sir Seldan... Reunion... but it's never a good idea to trust anything when you don't know where it keeps its soul." His eyes move back to the shelves... and then stop. He freezes, the blood draining from his face in shock.
With deliberate motions, he reaches into his haversack, pulling out his pair of white silk gloves, and donning them. Then he carefully reaches out, shifting a bottle aside, to grasp a small jar on a shelf, next to the desk. He turns to look at Verna and Seldan, as Zeke is stepping out, and what he holds is indeed a small jar... with a human eye in it. As fresh as if it had been drawn forth from a skull just now, the iris bright blue. "I... gods, I think this was the eye he removed."
Verna must partially peel the page from the floor, as the two are semi-adhered by the not-quite-coagulated blood that covers a large portion of the page. "Not only blinded," she adds to Seldan's comment, "but plunged into darkness. Into the Void. In order to create his own realm, in whole... he would sacrifice our own to oblivion..."
Her frown then deepens. "An intelligent artifact with such predilections cannot be allowed to freely exist." Telamon then further draws her attention to the jar. At which she peers, leaning forward some and eyes narrowing. "That is ... exceptionally well-preserved, and cleanly extracted."
Seldan quietly sets down the second page, having read it, atop the first, and turns away. "Great-grandfather," he murmurs sadly. "Seduced by the false promises of a thing of wretched evil, in chasing glory did you fall farther into the depths than you shall ever know. Into the waiting jaws of a nightmare worse than destruction itself."
At his hip, the elderly, nasal female voice speaks up. "Not all of us, Seldan. Not all of us."
"I know, Fallia." He looks up, then, at Telamon's call, and directs a long, stunned stare at the item in question. He shakes his head, and turns away. "No offense taken. You have the right of it. It whispered to him, seduced him with false promises. Do we find this thing, none are to touch it directly, and I shall place it in the care of the Temple. Returning it to the Guild, that another might so fall, would be beyond foolishness. Those do I know who might see the Guild handled, to the benefit of all."
He sighs, and turns away, his eyes on the stained floor. "I am uncertain that this place is needful," he murmurs. "Let us go."
Telamon producing a disembodied eye does not stop Zeke from exiting the room. The eye itself gets only a passing glance from the sith-makar. In fact, his steps might be even a touch quicker than before. It is hard to tell with Zeke who's gate is even on a good day far from totally natural. He waits in the hall then.
GAME: Seldan rolls will: (4)+34: 38 GAME: Telamon rolls Will: (9)+23: 32 GAME: Zeke rolls Will: (5)+24: 29 GAME: Seldan rolls will: (16)+34: 50 GAME: Zeke rolls Will: (5)+24: 29 GAME: Verna rolls will+2: (17)+24+2: 43 GAME: Riptide rolls 20d6: (66): 66
Telamon holds the jar in his gloved hand, and a bellow fills the room. It's the voice of Rhain Padaryn. "NO! YOU MAY NOT HAVE THE EYE!"
The Eye? Or... the eye? Either way, Rhain Padaryn descends down from the ceiling--
No. It's him, but impaled on a sword. Right through the heart. His face contorted in eternal anguish and torment. He bellows in pain, in rage, in anger: for while there's a blade in his heart, there is also an eye missing in his socket.
-TBC